Chapter One Introduction
Questioning is one of the most important tools in guiding students’ cognitivethinking. And the cultivation of cognitive strategies is an indispensible part of the NewEnglish Curriculum Standards. In 1975, Sinclair and Coulthard proposed a three-partmodel in classroom as a universally interaction form adopted by all teachers: “A typicalexchange in the classroom consists of an initiation by the teacher, followed by aresponse from the pupil, followed by feedback to the pupil’s response from the teacher”(21). Huge amount of evidence proved that teachers ask abundant amount of questionseveryday and in every lesson: Romiett Stevens (qtd. in Atta-Alla 63) did the earliestresearch and stated that approximately 80 percent of time in school day was used forasking and answering questions; eighty years later, the percentage was decreased toabout 40 percent; Gall (1970) exemplified a large amount of research to demonstratethat a lot of questions were asked by teachers, in which 180 questions were asked in oneclass period and an average of 348 questions during a school day (707); White andLightbown also claimed that anESL(English as the Second Language) teacher asked427 questions in a single 50-minute class (163); Wragg (1984) integrated theinvestigation related with questioning and found out that teachers asks about 395questions everyday and they spend around 30 percent of their time in asking questions(84). Similar studies can also be found in the works of Brock (1986); He Anping (2003);Kong Wen & Li Qinghua (2007); Lu Yanfang&Lv Da0li (2011).
From the above statement we can conclude that questioning is a critical skill usedby teachers to elicit students’ response and to initiate the classroom interaction. In recentyears, enormous investigations concerned with questioning were conducted abroad byforeign researchers, and the participants were also foreign teachers. Such as the worksof Tony Lynch (1991), Brock (1986), Z. Diaz, M. Whitacre, J.J. Esquierdo& J.A.Ruiz-Escalante (2013), G. Thompson (1997), Borich (1992), Wilen (1991) andChaudron (1988).And in China, most of studies connected with questioning wereconducted in universities or senior high schools. Such as the works of Kong Wen & LiQinghua (2007),Hu Qingqiu (2007), Lu Yanfang&LvDaoli (2011), Zhao Xiaohong(1998), QuSheming (2006), XuFeng (2003), Zhou Xing & Zhou Yun (2002),Zhang Lingkun (2006), Tang Yangyang (2011), Li Yuewen (2007), Li Rui (2011),Huang Changgang (2012), Wang Yabing (2012), Li Taibo (2009). As questions take upsuch a large percentage in teachers’ classroom teaching, expert teachers’ extradinaryperformance in teaching must be related with questioning in some degree. Apparently,the improvements of questioning skills require hardwork and diligent learning fromexpert teachers in school. Therefore, the comparative study between expert teachers andnovice teachers in terms of classroom questioning is very beneficial and has its uniquesignificance.The participants in this study are four English teachers in a private middle schoolin Chengdu. Among them, two are expert teachers and the other two teachers are noviceteachers. All of the four teachers and their students are native Chinese. This study aimsto investigate the difference between expert teachers and novice teachers in terms ofquestioning classification, questioning strategies and wait time, thus provides chancesfor teachers to reflect on their classroom questioning. At the same time, researcher alsoplans to explore the underlying reasons of ineffective questioning so that shed somelight on teacher education and school management. For the sake of achieving those aims,researcher used three research instruments, including audio-recording, questionnaire andinterview.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Introduction to Questioning
Questioning is usually used by people to gain information from others. And topicsrelated with questioning are various. In the later section, the review of questioning willbe specifically introduced and evaluated, which sums up the theories about definition ofquestioning, questioning types, functions of questioning, questioning strategies and waittime. What’s more, it also gives a review of the empirical studies of questioning homeand abroad. Concepts of questioning have been defined and elaborated by many researchers,whose opinions are somewhat overlapped with each other. And the definition ofquestioning which will be adopted in this research is defined by researcher.The word question comes from a Latin word “quaerere”, which means “seek”. Soother words like “inquire”, “require”, “acquire” which means “gaining information fromothers” have the same root with “question” (李跃文 3).The most widely adopted definition is found in The Longman Dictionary of theEnglish Language. In this dictionary, questions were defined as “commands orinterrogative expressions used to elicit information or a response, or to test knowledge”(qtd. in Tony Lynch 201). Tony Lynch (1991) makes a specific explaination for thisdefinition and he points out that not all questions are interrogative, such as the sentence“Tell me why you chose this answer.” Similarly, not all interrogative sentences arequestions. For example, the sentence like “How do you do?” It do not mean to gain anyinformation from others but mean to express greetings (201). Sometimes we canobserve in the classroom that teachers frequently ask this kind of questions: “What’s thecolor of the wall?”; “What’s the opposite word of fat?” Apparently, teachers use thesequestions to test learners’ memory, or encourage their comprehension.
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2.2 Review of the Empirical Studies of Questioning
Unlike the large amount of theoretical research about questioning, the quantities ofempirical studies of questioning are much smaller. In the first part, researcher willintroduce the review of empirical studies of questioning abroad and in the second part,empirical studies of questioning in China will be illustrated. A lot of investigators study the quantities or proportions of each type of questionsin the classroom. Daines (qtd. in Dantonio 31) studies social science teachers who teachin primary and junior high period and find out they ask 1.5 questions per minute; Gall(1970) finds that among 180 questions asked by teacher in a class period, nearly 60percent of them are memory questions while only 20 percent of all questions requirestudents’ other cognitive competence; Swift and Gooding (qtd. in Dantonio 31) do thesimilar research and they estimate that 85.9% of science teachers’ questions targettoward learners’ memory. The same findings also appear in the findings of Goodlad (qtd.in Dantonio), with 75 % of teachers’ questions are related to memory of knowledge (31).Moreover, M. N. Atta-Alla (2012) records the classroom teaching of 18 teachers andreports that each teacher asks an average of 123.5 questions in a forty-five minute class.Firstly, they ask more direct questions(nearly 70 questions per teacher in one class) thanindirect questions(8.44 questions per teacher in one class). Secondly, they ask lessyes/no questions (20.5 questions per teacher in one class) than wh-questions(47.33questions per teacher in one class). Thirdly, they use more oral prompts instead (44.56prompts per teacher in one class) of asking more real questions. Fourthly, they ask morecomprehension questions than the other types of questions (67).
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Chapter Three Methodology....... 17
3.1 Research Questions........ 17
3.2 Participants....... 18
3.3 Research Setting ..... 18
3.4 Research Methods.......... 19
3.5 Methods to Analyze Data...... 20
3.6 Research Procedures ...... 23
Chapter Four Findings and Discussions .......... 25
4.1 Findings .... 25
4.2 Discussions ...... 30
Chapter Five Conclusion......34
5.1 Implication .......35
5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for the Future Research.....36
Chapter Four Findings and Discussions
4.1 Findings
Learners’ cognitive activities in classroom primarily guided by teachers’ discourseand behaviors. Therefore, questioning as one of the most often used teaching techniquesin classroom teaching should guide students to engage in various cognitive activities.From section 4.1.1 to section 4.1.3 is the data which was analyzed from thetranscriptions of four teachers’ classroom teaching and the information gained frominterviews and questionnaire. From the above analysis, we can infer that there is significant difference betweennovice teachers and expert teachers in terms of questioning type(P= 0.046<0.05).In order to explain this discrepancy, participants were asked many questions in thequestionnaires and interview. Expert teachers believed that teachers need pose moreanalyzing, evaluating and creating questions, while two novice teachers pointed out thatremembering questions were better for students to achieve learning goals and to mastergrammar points. Firstly, expert teacher E1 said: “In order to inspire students’ cognitivethinking and improve their interests in learning, teachers need pose more analyzing,evaluating and creating questions. Moreover, teachers’ questioning types need bebalanced.”
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Conclusion
In this chapter, a brief review of the findings and discussions of this paper is givenin the first part. Then implications generated from findings and discussions isexpounded in the second part. The last part is limitations of this research and futuresuggestions set forth by researcher.As for questioning types, a significant difference has been found between expertteachers and novice teachers in terms of questioning types in junior high school Englishteaching. Expert teachers asked more analyzing, evaluating and creating questions thannovice teachers did. The underlying reasons can be divided in following aspects: first,novice teachers’ awareness in promoting students’ cognitive strategies is inadequate.They were habituated to guide students’ remembering, understanding and applyingabilities, but ignored their analyzing, evaluating and creating abilities. In the secondplace, novice teachers’ lack in teaching experiences let students hard to facilitatestudents’ understanding and answering of analyzing, evaluating and creating questions.Lastly, the requirements of administrators and structure of examinations restrictedteachers’ exploration of deeper cognitive abilities in teaching.
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